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In a profession that’s been all about men, we meet a female tattoo artist who’s turning the tide – and boosting women’s body confidence while she’s at it. By Gillian Drummond. Photos by Danni Valdez. Makeup by Rich Makeup Artistry by Taylor Laurie

Veronica Stice. Photo by Danni Valdez. Makeup by Rich Makeup Artistry by Taylor Laurie

It’s a fine thing to find your calling in life, and even better when you discover it young. Veronica Stice was 18 when she found hers.

She was living in the tiny town of Grinnell, Iowa (population 9,200) and had a love of art and a fascination for tattoos. After getting her first tattoo – a burst of sunflowers across her shoulders – she fell headfirst for tattoos and the tattoo life.

Veronica is an all or nothing person. And so it was with tattoos. “I jumped in 100%,” says Veronica, whose petite frame is now mostly covered in ink. She graduated from high school and got a job at a tattoo shop as a receptionist (and cleaner, and errand runner) but really what she wanted was to be a tattooist. That, and live the life she saw the tattoo artists there living. “I just saw how much money these guys were making and nobody told these dudes what to do. They got to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. As an 18-year-old it was like ‘All these dudes do is have fun’.”

Some of Veronica’s tatooo work. Photo courtesy of Veronica Stice.

Crucially, though, they were “dudes”. She paid her dues as a receptionist, even putting up with their military-camp-like pranks: her shoes being hidden, her car being ‘stolen’, her body being sprayed with rubbing alcohol. And all the time she was drawing tattoo ideas at the front desk and bugging the owner to teach her the trade. He refused. “It came down to him saying girls can’t be tattooers. I lost my job over it,” says Veronica.

On the drive home she called her dad in Tucson. She moved out here a month later, the rejection making her all the more determined. “I knew I could do it and I’m kind of stubborn. Success is the best revenge,” she says.

Within two weeks of moving she had a job at what was then Inkaholics Anonymous, now The Painted Lady tattoo shop on East Speedway. Even then she had to bide her time until she got to tattoo. Her first was an anchor she created herself and inked onto the side of her boss’s knee. And it was bad. “It was awful but I had got to the point where I was so frustrated by how the apprenticeship was going. I walked in one day and said ‘I’m doing this today. I’m tired of this. I need to make money’.”

Seven years later things have changed immeasurably, both for Veronica and the whole tattoo industry. Tats are big, cool, in vogue. They’re no longer associated with bikers and jailbirds but also the hipster, the sorority girl, the middle-aged mother, the otherwise average Joe. Tattoo shops take in more than $2.3 billion in revenue a year in the USA. A survey last year found that 40% of households have someone with a tattoo. The number of female tattoo artists has risen sharply, with some of them creating their own brand. (Witness the reality TV star Kat Von D, now owner of a line of beauty products at Sephora.)

Black Rose Tattooers on 6th Avenue has mostly women on its staff. Photo courtesy of Veronica Stice.

Veronica, now 25, is manager of Black Rose Tattooers on 6th Avenue in downtown Tucson. She works with an almost exclusively female staff (five other women plus the male owner, Mac McKay).  She has more than 1500 followers on Instagram and people come from as far away as Australia just to be tattooed by her. She charges $120 an hour and is making enough money to be able to travel for six months of the year, when she couch-surfs through Canada and the U.S. to visit friends and to freelance at other tattoo stores.

She is carving out a niche for creating elaborate and feminine lace-like tattoos the likes of which she doesn’t see elsewhere. She‘s also deliberately making her shop female-friendly. “I think it gives us the opportunity to offer women a whole other level of comfort. Some people think [tattooing] is kind of skeezy, kind of back alley.”

Veronica tracing a tattoo design. Photo by Danni Valdez. Makeup by Rich Makeup Artistry by Taylor Laurie

Tattooing women is way different from tattooing men, she says. “It’s something I don’t think a lot of male tattooers consider. Women are soft and round and very curvy and tattoos should flatter that. It should look like it belongs on you.” And they can be a body image boost, she says. You don’t like a part of your body? “Slap a tattoo over it and you fall in love with it.”

She has also used them to hide physical scars – covering up scar tissue and, in one case, helping to conceal third degree burns. “It makes them fall in love with their body and that’s huge. If I can give that to somebody it really really makes me happy,” she says.

Tattoo regrets? She’s had a few of her own. Her least favorite tat is a washed-out-looking portrait of Twiggy on her inner right arm. But mostly she is in love with her work, both on her own skin (and before you ask, yes, she has tattooed herself) and her clients’. Right now she’s working on a piece for a client who wants a revolutionary war theme with a sinking ship, naval officers, the lot. “It’s like a classic oil painting. I don’t like the more abstract stuff. I feel like tattoos should look like tattoos,” she says.

Veronica used a tattoo to cover up this woman’s burn scars. Photo courtesy of Veronica Stice.

Black Rose on 6th relaunches this week after a refurbishment, having added bright paint, laminate floors and an extended tattooing area (see below for details of the open house event taking place this weekend.) Veronica’s station consists of a heavy-duty tool chest full of sterile one-time-use needles, ink, dentist bibs for laying out her gear, a pillow and chair for the client, and of course the little machine that does all the work. Hand-held and consisting of electromagnetic coils, her tattoo gun turns its needles (there are several on the end, not just one) at 87 cycles a second. She could have opted for a quieter rotary machine but “I like the noise this makes”.

She talks of the Black Rose crew as her family. They’re also each other’s guinea pigs for body art. Tattooers like to practice on fleshy fruit like grapefruit and bananas, sometimes pig ears if they can get them. But many times it’s friends, family members and colleagues. There’s nothing like drawing on human skin, says Veronica, and her loved ones are not bothered if she messes up. “And you put the word free in front of the word tattoo and people don’t care.”

Veronica with her signature bright lipstick, and showing off a neck tattoo. Photo courtesy of Veronica Stice.

Photo by Danni Valdez. Makeup by Rich Makeup Artistry by Taylor Laurie

At 25 she seems too young to be complaining about aches and pains, but tattooing can be tough labor. She works up to 12 hours a day, sometimes on one client, and it involves gripping a constantly vibrating machine. “My hands hurt almost all the time. My neck hurts. My feet hurt,” she says, adding: “I’m an all or nothing kind of person. I have given myself to tattooing and it’s given me nothing but amazing things.”

With the extreme rise in the popularity of tattoos, does she fear that being inked is losing its edge? “I don’t really care about that,” she shrugs. “I think everybody should have a tattoo. It looks cool and it makes you feel good about yourself.”

She does have some rules though:

1. Don’t go too small. Her shop gets many requests for small tats – especially from female college students. “I think they’re maybe afraid to commit to a full-size tattoo.” Veronica says bigger tattoos will age better and are just way more fun. “What’s the point in having one if people can’t see it?”

2. She won’t do tattoos on the hand or neck, unless it’s a regular customer and they’re heavily inked already. “Why does an 18-year-old kid need a neck tattoo? I don’t want to be the cause of someone hating themselves.”

3. She won’t tattoo someone who’s been drinking or displays bad behavior. “If you’re just walking off the street and you’re being a drunk asshole, I will refuse you. It really is about how you carry yourself.”

4. Good hydration and sunscreen are the golden rules when living in the desert. The same goes for tattoos. Drink plenty of water and keep the area moisturized and your tats will love you for it.

* Find Black Rose Tattooers at 47 S. 6th Avenue and 421 N. 4th Avenue in Tucson, also 699 E. Fry Blvd, Sierra Vista. More at blackrosetattoers.com. Black Rose on S. 6th will have an open house this Saturday evening, March 21st, to celebrate its refurbishment.

-- Download Wood + pulp = Tucson's newest gallery as PDF --

Long-time friends Ben Schmitt and David Olsen have pooled their interests and talents to create Wood and Pulp, Tucson’s newest gallery. By Gillian Drummond. Photos by David Olsen

Inside Wood and Pulp, Tucson’s newest gallery.

On the walls is the pulp – the exhibitions of limited edition art prints. On the floors is the wood, or the furniture. Both the art on the walls and on the floor are by local Tucson artists.

Together they make up Wood and Pulp, Tucson’s newest art gallery and the creation of long-time friends Ben Schmitt and David Olsen.

Ben Schmitt (left) and David Olsen, owners of Wood and Pulp.

Ben is the ‘wood’ in the equation, a designer of furniture and custom cabinetry and owner of Davinci Designs. David is the ‘pulp’, a photographer, publisher of arts magazine Zocalo, and promoter of the arts in Tucson.

Wood and Pulp is the latest journey for two friends who have traveled both figuratively and literally. They met as students at the University of Arizona (David graduated in media arts and anthropology, Ben in humanities). Ben wanted a place to showcase his furniture, David wanted a gallery to showcase the talent of local artists he loves, and an office for Zocalo Magazine. David points out that furniture and art go together; you have one, you need the other. “If you have art, what do you do with the floor space?” he points out.

The woodblock used by artist Joe Marshall for Wood and Pulp’s current art exhibition.

Tucson artist Danny Martin signs copies of screen prints exhibited recently at Wood and Pulp.

David’s involvement in the project is double-edged. He knows Wood and Pulp (and marketing it) is important if he is to continue advocating the arts in Tucson. He also knows that if he gave too much coverage of the gallery in his magazine, there may be raised eyebrows. He prefers to tread on the safe side of that fine line and take a backseat when it comes to public relations. Ben is modest too, for other reasons. “I don’t aspire to be a great well-known designer, I aspire to build pieces that are well crafted and are going to last a lifetime,” he says.

Wood and Pulp is in the Firestone Building in central Tucson.

They considered other spaces but when this one came up in the historic Firestone Building – a hub of art galleries, offices and studios and formerly a storage goods facility, a tire store and, latterly, Crystal Rhinestone Boutique – they didn’t hesitate. “This is really the new arts district in Tucson so for us it was a natural fit. And we would get two-thirds of the space on Congress Street [for the same price],” says David of a location that’s a hop and a skip from downtown and also Tucson’s 4th Avenue.

A lamp by Ben Schmitt, on display at Wood and Pulp.

They painted the concrete floors grey and built a pony wall in the middle of the gallery, something that would provide a separate space for the furniture and also control flow at parties and openings. The art on the walls – rotated every month – is displayed on boards rather than framed. “I like the idea of them popping,” says David.

Ben Schmitt likes to experiment with different angles on his furniture, as shown with this table.

Davinci Designs carries the tag ‘the science of art’. It sums up Ben’s interest and training in drafting and architecture. He studied both subjects in high school, and did a year at the University of Arizona’s College of Architecture. Originally from Westport, Connecticut, he returned there after college to spend a year working in construction, on high-end custom homes. He spent a year apprenticing for Russian cabinetry maker Seva Gamba and two years as an apprentice with Bob Mick of Astro Fab furniture makers. Through Davinci Designs, he has worked with a regular roster of Tucson architects and designers, including HK Associates and Kevin Osborn Design.

Ben’s work mixes materials and plays with different angles. You’ll find him using African hardwood together with powder-coated steel. One of his signature marks is designing furniture pieces that include a 15 degree angle somewhere, usually on the base. Among the furniture Ben has on display at the gallery are creations by the likes of Scott Baker of Baker + Hesseldenz and Jake Scott of Black Hill Design.

A jewelry cabinet and (background) dining table and bench by Ben.

A night stand designed and crafted by Ben Schmitt.

One of Ben’s dining tables on display at the gallery.

David grew up in Pasadena, California. At high school he became interested in filmmaking and photography and worked in Hollywood for a time. After attending the University of Arizona, he returned to working in Hollywood before settling in Tucson. “The friends I made here are from everywhere else. Tucson is a melting pot of geographically misplaced individuals. I felt like it was a place you could kind of do anything you want. It was easier to pursue passions and dreams,” he says.

His own passion, apart from Wood and Pulp, is running Zocalo Magazine (he was formerly with Tucson Weekly and founded Downtown Tucsonan magazine for the Downtown Tucson Partnership). “Ever since I was little I felt an entrepreneurial spirit in me. I wanted to run my own business,” he says.

There is one caveat, however. “It’s been a lot of fun,” says David of setting up Wood and Pulp. “That’s the key. I don’t want to do it if it’s not fun.”

* Find Wood and Pulp at 439 North 6th Avenue or at woodandpulp.com

* Wood and Pulp’s current print release is Joe Marshall’s “Paw Paw’s F-100”, a 5-color reduction woodblock print on birch plywood, hand printed on natural kozo by the artist.

-- Download The music makers with a difference as PDF --

By day they’re helping design great spaces, by night they’re rocking out in bands. And it’s no coincidence. These three say design and music go hand in hand. By Steve Renzi. Photos by Danni Valdez. Cover photo of Rob Paulus.

Hey Bucko! featuring Ryan Anderson, left, a transportation and planning policy advisor. Photo by Danni Valdez.

Good planning, design and architecture connect us to the world and make it a better place to live. So does good music. You could say that a life without music is as barren as a cityscape without people or a landscape without plants.

We talk to three people who are in the business of planning great spaces by day, and playing music by night. Coincidence? We don’t think so.

“Good design and music go hand in hand.”

Rob Paulus, architect by day, player of violin and guitar by night. Photo by Danni Valdez

The work of architect Rob Paulus of Rob Paulus Architects is well known in Tucson and beyond. Along with his wife Randi Dorman, he has designed and developed several residential projects including Indigo Modern, Barrio Metalico and the Ice House Lofts. He also plays bass guitar and the violin.

How did you learn music? “My grandmother could play a mean piano and was a huge influence on our family of seven. I can still vividly remember her stack of multi-colored vinyl records (78rpm) that she would play on her vintage turntable. My older brother got me playing guitar at age ten, I’ve never had a real lesson and tell everyone that I went to the school of “Hunt and Peck.”

 Tell us about you musical career.  “My first gig was at a Catholic church in the sixth grade in front of the entire school. My buddy and I deviously brought our electric guitars – it was my first taste of Rock and Roll. I got into bass and jazz in my early twenties playing with Larry Redhouse here locally. I’m currently playing with my long time friend, Marshall Jones in a variety of groups from a string trio to a full on band with our amazing vocalist Genevieve Gaus.”

As an architect, what are your influences? “Much like music, good architecture needs many layers of legibility but with an underlying solid foundation and rhythm. In Europe I got to see the modern work of architects Nicholas Grimshaw, Richard Rogers and Norman Foster. Their work was set into urban environments that date back thousands of years. This really blew me away and thoroughly reinforced the importance of creating solid design that looks to the future while integrating and celebrating the past.”

How do your day and night jobs contribute to and influence one another? “Good design and music go hand in hand and ultimately involve a thoughtful approach to composition. There needs to be a balance of solid and void as well as the concept of tension and release that define both.”

You recently visited Cuba. Tell us about it. “Cuba has such an intact and walkable urban environment. Part of the allure was what wasn’t there; no cell phone service, no fast food, no corporate housing tracts…There is a purity in both the music and architecture that I hope isn’t lost as they transition into the modern world.”

“Design and music are both rooted in mathematics.”

Landscape architect and guitar player James DeRoussel. Photo by Susan Denis

James DeRoussel has been a landscape architect in Tucson for 15 years and currently works at ForeSite LLC.  He also works at Watershed Management Group, a Tucson non-profit focused on water harvesting and sustainability. He plays guitar and is a vocalist – he considers the voice to be another instrument. He has played in country bands and is currently in the band Latigo.

How often do you play?  “My standard answer is that I’ve owned a guitar for 25 years, but I’ve only been playing it for two. It’s only partly a joke. I would play every day for a month and then not touch a guitar for three months. I did that for 25 years. Now I am excited about my new project, a band called Latigo. We rehearse once a week and I try to practice every day.”

How do your two careers feed off and contribute to one another? “Most folks fear public speaking. As a landscape architect, I teach a lot and spend a lot of time doing public speaking, so I got over stage fright a long time before I started performing musically.

“Design and music are both rooted in mathematics at many levels. The elements of rhythm, repetition, balance and variety are all common to music and to design. And all those elements must be present to compose a musical piece or a landscape design of high quality. So understanding these principles and how people experience them is really important to design, composition and performance.”

Your favorite example of local architecture? “I think the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum is a world-class example of what’s possible when design is rooted in local context, and when architecture, landscaping and engineering are approached in an integrated way.”

Tell us about your music. “I like all types of music, but am singing mostly country music now. My favorite song changes weekly. I am constantly humming or singing a tune and half the time, I don’t know I’m doing it. It drives my wife crazy.”

“The key in music and politics is to be attuned.”

Ryan Anderson, transportation, planning and sustainability policy advisor and a member of the band Hey Bucko! Photo by Danni Valdez

Besides being once voted as “best natural mustache,” in the Rialto Theatre’s Beerd Fest competition, Ryan Anderson is Transportation, Planning & Sustainability Policy Advisor at the Office of the Mayor of Tucson. Specifically, he has worked on the Mayor’s 10,000 Trees initiative, reducing the city’s water and energy consumption, developing bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, expediting transportation and supporting legislative efforts at the Capital. Anderson also plays rhythm guitar in the instrumental trio Hey Bucko!

How does music feed off and contribute to your other career? “The key in music and politics is to be attuned. Context defines how a note, policy, or program is received. Either it will play well in context or it is off, and you need to adjust. Sometimes you’ve written the underlying score, or developed the project, and thus have more control; other times you’ve joined something in progress and you have to harmonize with what’s already going on.”

What projects do you most admire in planning, design, or architecture? “I admire smart growth. Tucson’s efforts to revitalize downtown qualify. Generally, I like design that cherishes the quirks that make a place unique. I’ve done a lot of traveling, and my favorite spots around the world are unapologetically themselves, much like Tucson.”

Fave song and why? “The answer depends on my mood at the time. Maybe one of Ennio Morricone’s theme songs to Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti western films. I’m currently listening to D’Angelo’s new album, Black Messiah.”

 At the Pearly Gates, what will you be known for? “Hopefully, I’ll be known for more than my mustache.”